15 toe-tapping tunes to help banish the January blues

Oh God! The news has been full of stupid politicians saying stupid things and lying through their teeth, we've just taken down our lovely Christmas tree, some idiot bumhole has dumped a bunch of crud on top of the black bin-bags waiting for collection around the lamp-post nearest our front door, so the foxes will be on the rampage all night long and the bin-men will as usual do everything in their power to leave an even worse mess in their wake, and the sky is grey and boring, and... well it's early January and I"M NOT GRUNTLED! So I've whacked on the light box and gone hunting for some insanely cheerful songs to take the edge off my mood, and - just in case any of you are feeling low as well - I've decided to share them with you. I'll start with possibly the most cheerful song I know, from 1946:

On to 1951, and Wynonie Harris, the "Good Rockin' Tonight" man, with a similarly sex-obsessed ditty:

I'd always thought Wanda Jackson's recording of the gloriously bad-taste classic, "Fujiyama Mama" was an original - but it turns out that Annisteen Allen did it first in 1955, and it's superb:

If you don't love Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, I pity you:

What a debt the world owes Fats Domino - mercifully, still with us at the age of 88, which suggests that the dangers of corpulence might have been somewhat overstated:

"Dick Tracy" by the Chants is here because it's so splendidly silly:

Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns and their New Orleans shuffle have been cheering me up ever since I bought their greatest hits LP back in '85:

Jerry Lee Lewis's "It'll Be Me" was the flip-side of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". Sam Phillips deliberately speeded up the master track, and suggested that The Killer change the line "If you find a turd in your toilet bowl" to "If you find a lump in your sugar bowl", which, on reflection, was probably sound advice:

Carl Phillips's "Salty Dog Blues" is only marginally less upbeat than his rockabilly stomper, "Wigwan Willie", but I've already featured that one (here):

Ruth Brown's "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'" is (as far as I know) the only popular music song to contain the immortal line "See you later, mater":

If "Caldonia" is the most cheerful song I know, then "Johnny & the Hurricanes' "Rockin' Goose" is the most cheerful instrumental:

I once worked with a female TV presenter who fancied the lead singer of The Rubettes. I can't remember how the subject arose. She was Scottish:

"Cantaloupe eyes"? Must have heard it 500 times and never realised those were the words. Far out, man!

The Valentines' "That's It Man" was released in 1960 on King. I know nothing whatsoever about them:

Yes, I know that the inclusion of Adam and the Ants will probably raise a few sneers - but the first three or four singles were brilliant, and I can never hear this without singing along. Anyway, I looked great in the make-up:

There, I feel much better now - hope you do too.